Not all the way, not for several minutes, but it came down by degrees while I sat with my hands flat on my thighs and my eyes on the lamp, and eventually the apartment stopped feeling like the basement and started feeling like itself again.
I got up and made my way to the kitchen.
It was small, and I knew every inch of it. I flipped on the light over the stove, filled the kettle, set it on the burner, and leaned back against the counter while it heated.
Six months.
I turned the number over in my mind the way I did sometimes, taking its measure. Six months since the basement, since the rescue, since I’d stood blinking in the blue-white beam of a tactical flashlight while a big man with tattoos and a voice like gravel had saidyou’re safe now, we’ve got you,and I hadn’t believed it immediately but had eventually, which was the best I’d been able to manage at the time.
Five months since I’d come here. To this apartment, this city, this carefully rebuilt life. I’d chosen Houston because it was large enough to disappear into and because I’d never lived here before, which meant it had no memories in it. A clean slate. Somewhere to put myself back together without an audience.
The kettle came to a boil. I made my tea. It was Chamomile, not at all what I used to drink, but my therapist had mentioned something about associations being possible triggers. After that, I’d decided to build new ones, to give myself things that belonged only to this life and not to the before or the during. I carried it to the window.
Houston at four in the morning wasn’t quiet. But then it was never quiet. That was one of the things I liked about it, the low continuous hum of four million people going about their lives, none of whom knew my name or my face or what had happened to me. I was unremarkable here. I was one person in an enormous city, and no one was looking for me.
That felt like freedom most days, but some felt a lot like being invisible.
I put my hand on the glass. Cool against my palm.
Below, a delivery truck was making its rounds, and a man was walking a bicycle along the sidewalk instead of riding it, and the traffic light at the corner was cycling through its colors for an empty street. I watched it go through twice. Red to green to yellow to red.
I thought about the girl in the corner of the basement and hoped she had a light on wherever she was. I held that thought for a moment, the way my therapist had taught me. Then I let it go.
The flower shop where I worked had a wedding today. A big one. It was going to be a busy day, but I liked days like that. It kept my mind busy and off things I’d rather forget.
I finished my tea at the window and watched the city until the dark started thinning at the edges, then I washed my mug and went to get dressed.
Chapter two
Crowe
The forest was so still I could hear my own breath. The morning air was cool and carried the damp scent of cedar and earth. I moved slowly, careful not to snap twigs or crush leaves under my boots.
Up ahead, the buck lifted its head. Sunlight caught on its antlers, turning them gold for half a second before the light shifted again. I froze in place, careful not to spook him, and found him in my sights. My pulse slowed, steady and sure, the same focus I used to get before a mission.
He was a big one. The kind that didn’t survive this long by making mistakes.
I tracked him as he stepped through the brush, slow and deliberate. He paused, head up, every muscle alert. I had him lined up perfectly. Framed and centered, crosshairs dead on.
I exhaled and pressed down with my trigger finger.
Click. Click. Click.
The sound broke the silence, sharp and clean. The buck startled, then bounded off into the trees, a flash of movement and power gone as fast as it came.
I lowered the camera and checked the screen. Perfect shot. Gator would be proud of that one. He’d been teaching me some of his photography tricks, and while my stuff was nowhere near as good as his, this one was darn close.
I hung the camera around my neck and started back down the ridge. I was no longer concerned about stealth, my boots crunching through the leaves. The sun was climbing higher, warming the air, burning off the last of the morning haze. I stopped to take a couple more shots, one of a squirrel and one of a beautiful bluejay.
I hadn’t hunted anything but moments in a long time. These days, I was after something quieter. Proof that there was still beauty out there worth fighting for, and with some of the things we saw at Three Bears Tactical, I needed that reminder.
When I made it back to the cabin, I sat down on the bench by the front door and removed my boots before going inside. I putaway all my gear and then tossed another log in the woodstove. It was a little chillier than normal for this time of year, but I liked that because it meant I could still have a fire in the mornings. There was just something about the heat from that old cast-iron woodstove that felt different. It warmed me to the bone instead of just heating the air, or at least it felt that way.
Before I’d left the cabin early this morning, I chugged a cup of coffee, shoved down a protein bar, and then hit the trail. I hadn’t wanted to miss the sunrise or the animals that might be out, but now I was starving. I went to the fridge and pulled out the eggs, sausage, and some leftover potatoes from the night before. I had some freshly made tortillas I’d picked up at the store, and I figured that if I added some of the fresh salsa Mabel Jenkins had dropped off when she found out I was in town, that would all come together to make one really delicious breakfast burrito.
I pulled out an old cast-iron skillet and set it on top of the woodstove to heat. Wyatt and I had made more than one upgrade to the cabin since we inherited it from our dad, but changing out the old woodstove felt sacrilegious. Our grandfather had loved it, and he swore food tasted best when cooked on it in Wagner cast-iron skillets. I wasn’t sure if it really made a difference, but neither of us was willing to risk it by installing a modern stove in its place.
I poured myself another cup of coffee and drank it while I cooked the food, and then I sat down to eat at the table my grandfather had built. It was old, but it was sturdy, just like the cabin. This whole place was filled with so many memories. Two little boys sitting enthralled, as our grandfather told us all kinds of tall tales about his hunting or fishing adventures. The two of us, a littleolder, our dad, with all his supplies spread out over the table, while he tried to teach both of us how to make flies for our spring fishing trip. Then, my dad, a few years later, was the only time I saw him cry, as he came to the cabin for the first time without his father.
